The Basic Process of Recording Tracks on a Computer

Keep your tracks in the digital domain and get a better mix for less money

by Tweak

Korg Radias 49-Key Virtual Analog SynthesizerBased on Korg's cutting-edge MMT engine, this
24-voice synthesizer offers a variety of synthesis algorithms
together with multiple effects, new comb filter and wave shaping
features, modulation sequencing, as well as new formant-motion
vocoding. RADIAS offers an innovative design that can be custom
configured to suit your set-up. The control module can be used
independently or teamed with the unique dedicated keyboard, creating
a seamlessly integrated instrument that delivers the sounds of the
future -- today.

Roland AX-SYNTH Shoulder SynthesizerIt's time to escape the keyboard rig and rock the
stage. The stylish AX-Synth represents Roland's new generation of
remote keyboards, but for the first time, this one has a sound
generator onboard. It's self-contained and equipped with powerful,
solo-oriented sounds from Roland's latest, greatest synths. Strap on
an AX and steal the show.

Waldorf Blofeld 49-Key Keyboard SynthesizerNot only on the outside did he gain weight, also his
inner qualities have seen a remarkable step-up: besides the
virtual-analog synthesis and the classic wavetables it now sports a
whopping 60 megabytes of sample memory. Just imagine to add a
vocal-like noise spectrum to a typical Wavetable pad, spice-up a
virtual-analog solo sound with a strong attack sample or just
process any other sample with the countless oscillator and filter
modulations.

Moog Music Little Phatty II Stage Edition Analog SynthMoog Music is proud to introduce the newest member
of the Little Phatty family... the Little Phatty Stage II. Like the
Stage and Tribute Edition before it, the Little Phatty Stage II has
the same features and sound engine, designed by Moog founder and
inventor, Bob Moog.

Access Virus TI Snow Virtual Analog Desktop SynthThe Access Virus TI Snow Synthesizer Module delivers
the same sound engine as its big brothers in a compact size. The
intuitive design makes selecting and editing more than 6000 patches
from well-known sound designers a breeze. The Virus TI Snow also
lets you experience the best of both the hardware and the software
worlds by incorporating the award winning Total Integration
technology to seamlessly link the Snow with your sequencer. The Snow
comes with a fashionable carrying bag for easy transport to your
gigs. You get all this at a price unheard of for a synth of this
quality - It's like getting a sports car for the price of a scooter.

The home studio now has the ability to create music
totally in the digital domain, thanks to the emergence of affordable digital gear,
the evolution of midi/audio sequencers and the availability of powerful desktop
computers. This article gives you a step by step method of writing
and recording music totally in the digital domain. As an added bonus, we will
discover that in addition to the higher quality of the finished product, doing digital
allows for a much more inexpensive studio.

Time Out: What
is the difference between an Audio Interface (AI) and a Soundcard?

They do exactly the same
thing. The difference is that an AI usually exists outside the
computer in some form of enclosure, sometimes called a "breakout box".
There is always a cable and it either goes to a PCi card in the computer
or to a Firewire or USB port. While the audio interface is usually
considered to be "better" than a soundcard, you need to watch out for
a few things. The AI might not have a way to connect MIDI gear
(though most have onboard MIDI) and it might not have mic preamps, assuming
you will add your own.

Generally, the connectors on the AI are XLR and 1/4"
jacks, which are much better than the tiny 1/8" jacks on consumer soundcards.

The only analog phase in the recording technique
below is the actual recording of the tracks in the sequencer from their analog
sources. Once recorded, the tracks will not go through a digital/analog converter
till you listen to the final product on CD, DAT, MP3 or WAV--whatever you are using.
To get the full benefit of this enhanced sound quality you must minimize your
passes through converters. Remember how we used to minimize bounces in
the old analog tape decks? Today we minimize the number of passes we make
from the digital world to the analog world and back.

Once digitized, only do go back to analog when
there is no other way. Every time you pass through a converter you add errors,
noise, artifacts, and stuff you don't want in your mix. The critical component
for doing an all digital production is an excellent analog/digital converter.
The converters reside on your soundcard or audio interface, or if you have one,
a digital mixer (not required).

If you have both a digital mixer and an audio
interface, you want to make sure the mixer connects to the interface/card through
a digital connection, i.e., s/pdif, ADAT lightpipe, TDIF (Tascam) or AES/EBU
(a professional digital output format). Don't let these names scare you
off, just make sure that if you interface has s/pdif i/o that your digital mixer
does too, and again, you don't need a digital mixer to do a digital mix.
Why is that? Because all the top sequencers can function admirably as
a digital mixer. It's built right into the software.

Lets Get Started.

Step 1.

Sequence with MIDI till you get what
you want. If you are emulating a band, you know, ensembles with drums, bass,
guitars, keys, etc., then make sure you a) record each instrument to it's own
MIDI channel and track. b) record each drum group to its own MIDI track.
That is, make sure your kick drum is on a separate midi track. Ditto for
the snare. Group the hats together if you want and group the percussion
together if you want, depending on the song. (However, if you have a percussion
instrument that at any point "carries" the song, like a tambourine or cowbell,
then it too earns a dedicated track. Of course your solo synth,
lead guitar, bass, all get there own tracks. Why we are doing this comes
clear in #2. Make sure you are happy with your midi sequence before we
go on.

Step 2.

Record each sequenced track as a wave file.
In your sequencer, solo the track you want to record to digital audio.
Or if you are using an analog mixer, you can route the instrument to bus which
goes to the audio interfaces recording input. Or, if your synth has a
digital output, you can connect that to the digital input of the audio interface.
Just make sure only the intended instrument is being recorded. If you
had a 14 track MIDI sequence you might go for 14 audio tracks--or--if you want
to group some instruments together, like all the background horns, that's cool
too. But do be careful in your decisions at this point as it is a bit of a pain
to go backwards later (though certainly possible). OK! So now you have
an audio track of just kiks, another with just snares, another with just bass.
You're doing great, and you are hopefully noticing that the digital tracks sound
nearly as good as the real time output of the synth. If they don't, take
a look at your recording levels and make sure they are optimum--every track
has a strong level, but there's no clipping from bursting through the roof.
Its OK if the output sounds just a little worse than the real time midi track
did--no converter is perfect--, because we are about to restore a sheen and
luster to each track that should surpass the midi track.

Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display
inline frames.

Step 3.

With each track set the EQ, compression
and other plugins as appropriate. Yep, make sure every audio track has its
own dedicated EQ and software compressor. Now we're ready to rock, so pay attention.
First, get the kick a kickin'. In the compressor plugin, adjust the ratio,
threshold and release till the kick does what the song requires. If it needs
more balls, toy with the eq, kill the mud at 200-400 kHz and bring up the bottom
at 80-100 hZ. Put a little top on at 12kHz or so, so everyone knows it's there.
Now go to the snares and eq then so they fit exactly where you want it. Want
it bigger? Stick a room reverb plugin on it. Hey! There's no rules. If you
are as wacky as I you'll try stuff like vocoders and junk, just to see what
they sound like.

You never know what's doing to tickle the modern
consumer's taste buds (or your own). Hehe, you should be smiling. With the
realization that what you are doing, plugging in and experimenting would have
cost you about $80,000 ten years ago. But I digress. So, you do this with
all your tracks. Make sure you have the bass working with the drums and set
your levels and pan your positions so everybody is heard and nobody is crowding
someone else. Imagine each instrument is an ego-maniacal vanity-motivated typical
musician who'll get mad if you steal their limelight. Alright! Now it should
be sounding better than the midi mix--lots better!

Step 4.

Adding Vocals and adding emphasis. Here's
where having the excellent preamp pays for itself. As with the midi tracks,
this is the only conversion to digital that you will do, so do it the best you
can. Conventional wisdom says record the vocals in dry, then effect with plugins.
Or be radical, record the left dry and the right going through some outboard
reverb you have, and save yourself some CPU resources for another reverb. Sometimes
it takes 2 reverbs to get the vocal as lushy as you want. Or one for just
reflections and on for room, or hall or cave, where ever you are. For areas
that need emphasis, you might copy sections of a track to a new track and add
effects just to that section (very cool possibilities there). A boring
example, but one that always works, is to copy the snares from the choruses
only and paste them on another track and treat them with more, you guessed it,
reverb. A more Tweakheadz-like approach, just take the reverb off the
snares by itself and reverse it, so it does that backwards verb effect. Do weird
stuff with vocals too. See dudez and dudettez, anything is possible digitally
and there's no crawling behind the racks. You just tweak till something
inside says "Yes!" (Substitute your most affectionately used profane word if
you like)

Step 5.

You have set the levels on each audio track.
All your midi tracks are safely muted. The piece is balanced. The
left/right meters are looking good. You listen from your monitors and
the stereo image is the way you like it. When you are really happy
render it all to a wave file. Are we done? Not so fast!
Why quit now? You can if you want but you might miss some really important
opportunities to make a cool song a totally kill song. But before you
get started, save that wave file twice. I say the MIX is done. Time
to move to the MASTER or REMIX or Post-Production phase.

Step 6.

Call up a new, empty song and load the
mixed wave file. Yep, it's the only track in the song. You have a multitude
of options. If your software has a multiband compressor, you might play
with that and see if you can make the mix sound better. Take a look at
the waveform for the song as you listen. Is there anyplace where the song
loses intensity or gets boring? Put a volume envelope over the whole song
and perhaps do a subtle rise of volume right before the climax. Do your
final mastering edits. You can still cut or rearrange verses and choruses.
Or go totally ape wild. For instance, add tiny gaps of silence
at a deadspot, which registers with the listener but doesn't disrupt the flow.
For an example, listen to "Ur My BayBe" I actually ran each verse
through a different pitch shifter--weird stuff, I know, but someone has to try
it.

Step 7.

OK, by now you are tired, the significant other
is mad because you spent all weekend in the studio. Render the final result
to Wave and burn to DAT or CD. You're toast. That's when you know
you are done.

Summing Up

So you see, we just made a whole song entirely
in the digital domain and only went through one analog to digital converter.
Just one! You avoided all the hisses, hums, crackles of analog mix. If
you used a software sampler as your source sounds or the digital output on your
synths, the last converter it went through was at some pro studio far away.
The advantages of working this way should be very clear. You don't need
a roomful of synths. One good one will do. You don't need a monster
mixing board. Or even a big amp. Just connect some active bi-amped
speakers direct to your audio interface for monitoring. You don't need
outboard gear for effects or compressors (though you may find them useful for
preparing the track for digital recording). You don't need 1000 patch
cables. You do need a good mic, a good preamp, and a good analog to digital
converter on your audio interface, digital mixer, or soundcard.

You might be asking at this point, "Is
digital better than analog?" I think the answer depends on how
much gear you have and what quality it is. If you have a good analog board,
good processors, more than one compressor, lots of synths and samplers, are
using balanced cables to minimize noise, I think it's a relatively level playing
field. An analog setup is more fun because you get to use your hands and
real knobs to mix the monster. Doing the digital thing takes longer as you have
all the conversions of each midi track to audio file, a step not needed doing
an analog mix. This adds several hours to the process of making a 4 minute song.
There is also a certain warmth to the way analog signals "blend" electrically
together in a quality mixer. A digital "bounce" to stereo is sheer math
and number crunching. The argument can't be settled here and I love both
approaches. I will say that an all digital mix is cleaner and more "in
your face" if done properly, while an analog mix might have a creamier, more
subtle texture in the end. But the sheer amount of cash to do analog
well is well over 20 grand for a basic-but-complete home studio. The cash outlay
to do it all digitally might be from 6-7 grand for a nicely outfitted professional
sounding digital setup. Of course you can spend less and get up to working
speed for under a grand. And you don't have to choose one or the other,
you can do both, even in the same song. There's no hard and fast rules
for using modern music gear, just a million pathways for audio and midi to travel
on their way to a finished song. The joy is the process of getting there.
It's all up to you.